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Ba Sing Se Times article
BSST article, 3rd September 2011: Editor redesign At last, the new editor redesign has been made mandatory for all wikis. It doesn't matter much for our wiki, as we had enabled it a lot of time ago. But, I want to ask you a question; do you like the editor redesign or not? I have seen the Rich Text Editor, or the WYSIWYG version of it, but I do not like it in any way. The previous one was way better in RTE. However, the source more, which I had made mandatory in my preferences more than 2 months ago, is not very different than the previous one. Some bugs in the redesign are the lack of search box, the "Random page" and "Wiki Activity" buttons. It makes it hard to navigate from the editing window, and we have to go "back" to the page. The only way is to go to our userpage from the link in the bar as usual. I feel that the "Add features and media" are pretty useless. They aren't much of a help to users. The category management is kinda hard to follow too. The templates section is also pretty useless. The temps there are not usefull. Also, the most bugging thing related to templates is that the list of templates used on that page is linked below and can't be found easily. Some people have expressed dislike over the fact that the new editor has the buttons near the top and about the font change. The buttons are not really a problem if you get used to them. Dislike has also been expressed regarding the additional wiki-codes in the "more" part. I actually find it better as I don't have to scroll down and click it. One thing I don't like is the preview part. Though we don't go to a new page, the preview doesn't display the full width of the actual page. A major bug is the colors (yes, theme colors!). It is normally displayed in a shade of blue and had to be modified through CSS. Not many people are masters in CSS like Sifu Wjxhuang. And yes, just like every new change Wikia makes, this also invited major bugs. One of them was the cruel category burglar which made editing very tedious. Finally, I would like to ask you guys to rate this redesign. I will give it a 7.5/10 as it is not awesome and not crap too. If you guys don't like the RTE, you're welcome to use the source mode. The ways for switching to the source mode forever is given here, which I wrote a long time ago. Yes, fellows. Wikia will never have a long period with no major changes! On a different topic, I would like to share this link with you. Happy editing! BSST article, 17th September 2011: Pages creation: Is this really needed? In the past three months, many new articles are being created, to bring us closer to being the ultimate and best resource about Avatar in existence. However, some pages are utterly unneeded. Many of the pages created have individual articles in the now un-updated official nick.com site. If we don't have pages for all the characters and information in the official Avatar website, we can surely never call ourselves the best Avatar resource in existence. Sometimes, however, article creation goes way over the line. The Corn Man article is about a very minor character who appeared for barely 6-9 seconds in the episode. Why do we keep a page for such a minor character? Avatar Wiki's deletion policy clearly lists "Articles about minute details, e.g. "Zuko's Firebending" or "Unnamed House in Ba Sing Se" in the "What Not to Create" heading. Well, such articles are really redundant. Another one of an utterly unneeded page is Iroh's Sandal. While I voted it to be kept in the deletion discussion, I only voted for the information to be kept rather than the page itself. Why did I do it? Because, we don't have articles for Sokka's sarcasm, and so on. I agree, the sandal did play an important role and part in saving Iroh the first time and finding the Order of the White Lotus the second time, but a page for a footwear? This is seriously going way over the line. If we have a page for a mere footwear, we'll eventually get pages for Zuko's scar, and "That Particular Roof Tile in Team Avatar's Home". Amusingly, these both pages have some importance themselves. Zuko's scar led people to believe that the Fire Nation gave him the scar, and the roof tile shielded Team Avatar from the sun and rain, as stated by . The information in Iroh's Sandal article could be easily added to the Fashion in the World of Avatar article. I've also seen many articles in the wiki that could be merged into other articles. I would definitely recommend asking users around the IRC for their opinion, before creating an article. Or, as an expansion of the previous line, why not make a forum for discussions about creating pages? People don't compulsarily need to make threads and get consensus for every page that they want to create, but only for pages that might be very minor or has a bit of oppose in some way or the other. Some pages that might need threads on that forum are Iroh's Sandal, or Corn Man. As always, there has to be a positive consensus for the page to be created, and if there has been a negative consensus, the page will not be created. I feel that this is the best way to moderate our article creation. Feedback on this idea is as always, warmly welcome. Happy editing! BSST article, 1st October 2011: Introduction to Community Central You might have heard somewhere about Community Central, the central or the eye of the storm we all are in, and love. What is Community Central? Community Central is a place and a wiki where you can meet up with other Wikia community members to talk about your wiki or any other topic, learn about what is happening on Wikia, and find help from the experienced and knowledgable users. What kind of help would you require? It can be stretching from how to add a link, to complicated CSS and JavaScript. Wikia Staff announce their new features like chat, the new editor, the new profile redesign, and so on. Some Staff regularly post blogs regarding suggestions for users in editing, and many other topics. Weekly, Staff also post blogs regarding the technical tweeks, changes, and/or updates that have been fixed/done throughout the week. The blog comments allow users to discuss about the changes, new features, and suggestions, and voice their own opinions and suggestions to add on to the blog. Now comes the Admin and Founder Central that concentrates on educating, and/or helping both new and old wiki founders and admins in various topics. This can range from a short tutorial about Wiki Activity and Recent changes, to policy drafts help for newer admins written by our own little Rassidy! :P. The founder and admin central has helped a lot of users who are admins or founders of other wikis, with an example being me. The founder and admin hub also has a forum specifically for its purpose. The forum is divided into four sections: General questions, where general questions can be asked, as the name suggests. Technical help, where questions regarding technical topics like codes, CSS, and/or JavaScript can be asked, as the name suggests. Getting started, where basic questions about managing or creating a wiki can be asked, as the name suggests. And lastly, Watercooler, where you can post forums on any topics that don't fall in the above categories. After the two main parts of Community Central, now come the Community Forums. Forums in Community Central can be used for several purposes. These forums, like the Admin and Founder hub forums, are also divided into sections, but into two sections rather than four. Support requests, where you can seek help from the Wikia community and General discussion, where you can post general discussions. After covering forums, now come some important links. Some of the useful links are: Technical updates, Staff blogs, new features, tips and tricks, Help. This article was mostly to introduce the users who don't know about Community Central to it. I hope this all helps. Happy editing! BSST article, 22nd October 2011: Lack of activity Have you guys noticed the really noticable lack of activity in the wiki? Yes, answer is yes. But, 'me wonderz Y thar iz lak of aktiwiteh; MI NEEDZ AN AN'ZHAR'!' It's simple, we don't have much to edit other than occasional rewamps and transcripts. *Sigh* We're too flawless, aren't we? I used to think flawlessness was awesome, but now I realise that not being too flawless is good, as you have something to do almost always! Meh... I've been struggling to find something to edit other than minor typos and fixes. But guess what? I'm so unlucky that I don't find anything! :P All the action and edits take place when I'm not online, and I'm not involved in most of'em. That said, the advantage and positive point of it is that we can concentrate on Avatar Answers Wiki (Advertising FTW! :P)! Hey, you do have transcripts alright. But remember to not copy from avatarspiritmedia.net. Lol. And, due to the lack of a lot of editing, we have blog posts, heated arguments and problems :S and discussions taking place. I strongly believe that our activity will increase by ten-fold when The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra. Whatever you do to reduce the activity, I'll boost the activity by ten-fold! 'U askin Y?' Well, you would better ask the users who were around in '08, as they will know how much page creation and content expansions is going to occur. Oh yeah, we also have the Post-war comics coming up. That will, at the least, bring about a bit of page expansions and page creations. The saddest thing is the supposed postponing of the release of Legend of Korra. I'm stuck between being positive or negative. The postivite thing is... of course... they will get more time to spend on the series, thus making it better. The negative thing... obviously... 'ME iz tir'd 'f weitin'! We last saw an episode of Avatar 3 years back, and I'm really tired of waiting 2 more years for it. I would like to settle with being negative with it, for now. We're all working to prevent the activity from crashing. We've got blogs, and contests, like 's Fanon Trivia, 's well-known Avatar Tournament 2. This period of less activity has also been the activity of many new changes and improvements. Take the title case and sentence case clash or the recent profile image change clashes. Gives us the proof that our wiki can never go without activity. We're so awesome that ever after 3 years after the series' end, we have a booming activity! Why are we so good? Why is it that we are almost flawless? It's because of us who have edited it and made it like this. Our community is, as I have said multiple times before, one of the best ones in Wikia. We have the proof, as even though we don't have much to do, we're still boooming and super cool. Our freenode IRC channel is definitely the epicenter of the earthquake we better know as Avatar Wiki. It's 'ze bezt!' I met... lemme count... *Natsu counts* more than 5 users... yeah, more than 5 users through IRC. How can we keep our community strong without interacting? Nope, no way to do that. I hope that we can keep our activity booming until Legend of Korra and the post-war comics shove in. Happy editing! BSST article, 5th November 2011: Interview: The Bos 1. Does it feel different being an admin after being a fanon admin for over an year? It's not majorly different; when I was a fanon admin I always was very active in canon maintenance, and would frequently do the deletions normally left for the main admins. And now, as an admin, I remain active in the fanon side as well, starting publication of The Generals and continuing on Mysteries. It's all in all pretty much the same, given how much I feel I need to do. 2. What are your opinions on the movie and your expectations for Legend of Korra? I did not like the movie... I had to sit through the whole thing with a moderate fan beside me trying to tell me who things weren't all that different. They were, and I was quite disappointed. The animation was good enough, but the acting and writing had a lot to be desired. Korra, on the other hand, looks like it will be quite a masterpiece. The style looks fluid and brilliant, and it looks like it will be a full series with as much epic-ness as 'Sozin's Comet'. I'm a little hesitant about the technology, but considering the Mechanist had already invented half of it by the original series, I can let it slide. 3. How are your fanons going? Do you have plans on writing more series? With college classes, I've been forced to put Wiki work on the back burner... Sad to say, yet true. I've been keeping an eye on things, and trying to come up with ideas, but haven't had too many as of late. I've already finished the Generals, so that will be coming out on a pretty regular basis (for those who care to read) and I'll get working on Mysteries and a special surprise as well (Natsu already has an idea as to what it is). As for my future plans, I've got another idea in the works, that as of now only Dragon of The West knows about and that is so far away from publication that I have no need to be mentioning it. But, I will say that I've written a few things here and there for it, as well as my most brutal scene ever. When it comes out, I think my fan base will be pleased. 4. Considering that you've won the Fanon Trivia Contest, you must have read many fanons. What are your favorites? Favorite fanons... I've always liked the Wanted-verse, including all of Dragon's wonderful expansions. I honestly feel that his series helped make Wanted into what it became. I'm into Sozin's Blood, Child of Destiny, Alone, and HTF; those are the ones I've read all that's out. I've also liked 'Avatar: Legend Of Fire' and 'The Runaway', but the author is gone now, so there's little chance they'll be finished. On my to-read list are Energy Saga, catching up on 'The 600th day' and see what I can read of Rassilon's stuff when he publishes it. I'm not incredibly well-read in all the wiki's fanon, given my very specific taste, but these are some of the examples of what I see and enjoy. 5. What, in your opinion, needs to be improved on the wiki? I see the wiki as constantly evolving based on the new users coming in. This, of course is great because of all of the new perspectives that are brought into play from newer, dynamic users. However, most policies were put into place for good reason, and I urge users to think about the origins of policies before proposing a forum to overturn them. I'm not saying all policies must stay, but that I see forums happening all the time about incredibly (in my opinion) minor issues. The wiki as a whole is amazing, probably in its best state ever, but it's clear the minor issues are still the bulk of our changes. Korra will bring about massive changes to the wiki, and we must be prepared. Large scale policies may need to be changed or amended, so we should keep ready. 6. You, of course, are a very experienced user. What are your "tips" for newer users? Tips... A system I've seen work is to stick to asking few users questions. Connect with a user who is more experienced than you and direct your questions to them. They can get you the answers, or they can at least tell you where to find out. And, instead of simple memorization, conceptualize. I think that is the single most important thing that a Wikian can do. Find out the origin of policies, traditions, or the system of how Wiki coding works, and then find out why and memorize that. If we have a group of analytical users, it will be better than a larger group of users who are unsure of what to do. We can then use the experience we gain to spread to newer users, by taking one under the Wiki-wing and teaching them. Then, they'll be able to teach the next generation of users. BSST article, 19th November 2011: New updates We've finally got new updates and information about the first and second installments of The Promise, the post war comics coming out next year, all thanks to and of course, Gene Yang, who provided us with information. The Promise Part 1, the first installment, is going to be released on January 25, 2012. Now, while we're all really excited for Legend of Korra, I'm more excited for these comics. They are like a bridge between our beloved original series and the new sequel or spin-off. First of all, I've seen that there have been concerns about Aang's face, which supposedly looks "younger" and "like a nine year old child". The cover art for The Promise Part 2, however, denies such concerns as Aang clearly looks his age. Secondly, from the first few pages, it definitely looks that the comic is going to be worth the wait! Now, for my opinions. After watching Gene Yang's youtube upload regarding this comic, I must say that I absolutely love Toph's redesign. She looks old and mature. Katara's redesign is my second-favorite. Plus, after seeing some panels, I'm really impressed by Gurihiru! Their illustration is simply awesome and breath-taking! But, the thumbnail for the cover art of The Promise Part 3 was the one that took my complete interest. It looks awesome, and I don't think I'll be able to wait until it is released. Seriously, I'm sure I can't. By the time I saw it, I was already speculating and forming my own, not to mention stupid, theories about what's going to happen. From what we know currently, Kuei is going to reappear (I've my own theories as to what he did during his exile)! And of course, my second-favorite animal in Avatar, Bosco too! Now, now, you might have, obviously, known that I'm super-duperly excicted. What are your opinions? BSST article, 3rd December, 2011: Message Wall Many of you might know about the upcoming "forced" replacement of MediaWiki default talk pages by "Message Walls", that are similiar to article and blog comments, by Staff, which is under development. I posted a blog about this, to inform users about the change, and all of the users, except two users *cough* wjxhuang and Rass *cough*, have several negative opinions about it. First of all, I really want a preview function, which a huge amount of users have been demanding. I'd also like if some of the extra white space is removed. That one's really annoying me. Users are also criticising the use of the "A.K.A" name in bold and the actual user name in a smaller font size. I was originally not happy with it, too, but I'm now pretty indifferent to it. After the repeated demands by users for a header where you can add text that you add now, like talk page picture or other messages, a sub-page was created, where you can add such text and images, which is transcluded on the "wall". One of the other improvements applied to the Wall are the improved timestamp. Another thing I like about this new feature is that newer users don't have to be pestered to add signatures, as the time stamp is added automatically. But one draw back is that the work of people who have spent some time making good signatures will be mostly wasted. Now, the messages are replied on the user's own message wall, which is more easier, allows easier checking up of discussions as logs, and is more efficient. I'm still not sure about the automatic pagination, as I've not seen it work. Now, many users claim that it's a copy of Facebook just because it's related to commenting and has "wall" in its title. I'd like to repeat what wjxhuang said by saying that commenting didn't originate in Facebook. Also, the idea of "it has 'wall' in its title, so it's definitely a copy of Facebook" is really crazy. The title "wall" or discussions through "comments" aren't copyrights of Facebook. I can't really say I love the wall, although, I can say I'm getting used to it, and I'll be able to bear with it, eventually. And with its automatic pagination, which will archive it every 20 posts, wjxhuang has a load off his shoulder, the weight of archiving talk pages with his bot. Now, while the message wall has negative points that can cause people to hate it and positive points that can cause people to love it, what are your opinions. Category:Samples